God of the hosting

On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.

Isaiah 25:6

Let’s see. Days’ handful still
to go and so
much left here to be done.
The gathering of food and drink,
the trimming up of yard and home,
final invites, last sweep and mop of floor.
Making ready for a feast always demands
all that I have to give
and more, late nights spent
making lists, too many turns around dark kitchen
puttering and putting house to rest
only to rise again with to-do on my mind.

Endless preparation — do they ever guess
the time it takes,
those I welcome at the door,
embrace with kiss and laugh
and can-I-take-your-coat?
Behind the scenes is where the spread
takes life: the quiet rolling of the silverware
in napkins and the careful press of linen
wrinkles smoothed by iron’s steam.

Sometimes I wish that I could be the guest:
the ones arriving eager, ignorant
of sweat and hours poured into the party,
those who taste and savor,
do not spy undusted shelves
or frown at pie that browned too long.
I envy innocence
of answering and not inviting.

But over years hosting became a life,
the way to keep heart widened
like door creaked open in the winter cold,
wet snow stamped in
on boots piled high to dry
while party swells and spills
into the basement, front porch,
following wherever wine and laughter flow.

I love a crowd, the jostle
welcoming unlikely crew –
friends and in-laws, uninvited 
stragglers perched on couches
balancing full plates on napkinned knees,
squeals of children weaving between legs
of grown-ups clustered in the kitchen,
heart where warmth and good smells always grow.

Right here’s the rub that hosting brings
each year when holidays ring round again:
the joy of drawing close, of living for a night
the way we ought to love all year –
with beauty, generosity,
all energy on evening, no worry of tomorrow.
Just the small sweet joy
of many underneath one roof,
tired satisfaction sharing
all the good my life can give.

God of the baking

And again he said, “To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

Luke 13:20-21

Here’s why I love to bake:
You start with nothing –
an idea, ingredients
of possibility, a plan and hope.
You slowly start to mix
measure and pour,
the transformation stirring with your spoon.
And suddenly it starts to look
and smell and taste alive –
creation sticky in my hands,
smeared between my fingers,
streaked across my hair.

The baker’s art takes patience,
planning, careful watch of
oven’s heat, directions’ time.
Forgiveness, too –
for cake that falls, deflated;
recipes that failed to rise.

Baking’s best as company affair:
Sometimes I cook with children –
grabbing cups and spoons to spill,
enthusiasm trumped only by sugar.
I sit and watch the wise work, too –
laughing, telling stories while they bake
with wrinkled hands,
forearms strong from years of kneading dough.

I ought to say that sharing is the best part –
breaking loaf and offering steaming slice in love.
But secretly I like to chew in silence:
taste alone the crunch of crust,
sink of teeth in softer middle’s heart.
Because creation’s sweetest in still morning
before the rest wake round me
greeting day with yawn and groan.
I love to feed their bellies,
but I need to rise alone.

God of the dishes

Wash away all my guilt; from my sin cleanse me.

Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure;

wash me, make me whiter than snow.

A clean heart create for me, God; renew in me a steadfast spirit.

Psalm 51: 4, 9, 12

Dirty dishes stacked so high,
porcelain towers on my right and left.
I take the sponge in hand,
wring out the water, squeeze on soap,
and crank the faucet hot.
Steam rises as the stream heats, steady
I plunge plates and cups
into the bubbles swirled below.
Swish, wash, rinse, repeat;
the stack grows smaller as I go,
plates now neat and nestled
drying silent in the rack.
My hands turn pink and bright in sink's hot bath;
my fingers pruned and white by end of night.

Long ago I ate alone:
the solitary rinse of single
spoon and knife and fork.
These days I’m elbow deep in pans,
scrubbing steel pots ringed
thick with soup, browned casseroles
of dinners passed with family, friends
all those who gather for my meals.

Cynics see the stubborn cycle
of the grimy, gooey junk
caked hard on dishes left to sit too long
(pardon my love of lingering one last glass)
as dirty proof of life’s depressing rut:
the endless drag of meals and mouths to feed,
a plate’s only escape the break
that sends it swiftly to the bin.

But I delight in dishes,
love the dirty and the clean:
how they slide in slippery hands
before I scrub in circles swift,
how they flash with water’s drip
each time I lift them up to rise,
inspecting both sides slick and sheen,
then dry them satisfied.

For dishes prove that someone shared the meal,
that there was food to pass,
safe time to spare.
Companions, plenty and a pause
are no small good
in world of loneliness, 
want, rush and fear.
And if I'd none to wash,
that would mean no one took the cup.
What a tidy, terrible mistake
that empty would have been.

God of the sweeping

Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, “Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.” In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Luke 15: 8-10

Every night I take the broom in hand,
both of us worn and tired
but still working.
As I stretch out arms
to reach the bristles’ brush,
the steady rhythm comes back easy,
drag of dirt across familiar floor.

Every day it slides the same:
crumbs, hair, dust, food 
all piled into tidy heaps
left waiting for the bin.
One swift dump, then goodbye.
But making clean is holy work –
refreshing for another day,
forgiving what is past and gone.
To gather, to release 
and then repeat
makes way, always
for one day more.

I know the time it takes,
the pattern of the pulling
corners into center,
how to turn and switch
the broom’s direction when the grit is stubborn.
Sometimes I even do my sweeping in the dark
when all the world’s asleep.

Only when I lose the precious
slipped under couch,
rolled into corner dark
or simply disappeared –
then only do I blaze the lights,
look steady as I clean, search
focused on the finding,
knowing work that will not fail.

But if I did not sweep each day,
memorize these floors,
their stains and scuffs,
then I could not seek what’s lost
when it’s the coin that matters most.
So thus it was and always must it be:
pull creaky closet door to find old broom,
swish brush, brush swish
reach pull, pull reach
and then again to rest.

what i learned on my summer vacation

The fridge is empty, last night’s laziness having triumphed over practicality’s grocery run to replenish.

The children are stirring early, time zones and travel having thrown off their inner clocks.

The laundry looms large, shirts sticky with sunscreen and ice cream and sand.

We’re home.

A whirlwind of wedding; a long, lazy stretch of beach; a week of family. In a summer when our attention has been turned inward – boxes still begging to be unpacked, house projects clamoring for every second we can spare – what a breath of fresh air it was to leave. To relax, to recenter, to enjoy being together.

To do nothing and then rest afterward.

We’ve traveled a fair amount with kiddos in our short years as parents, and we learn from every trip. Yet perhaps the wisest move my husband has made is to book our flights with a Saturday return, giving us plenty of time for reentry before Monday morning. It’s the utter opposite of my travel philosophy (“cram every possible ounce of fun into every last second,” which has, coincidently, resulted in more than one squealing-to-the-curb, sprinting-to-the-gate, screaming-from-the-stress airport arrival). But I’ve come to love it.

Soaking up the Sunday sunrise on my back porch, typing away with no toddler tugging at my sleeve, I’m reveling in one last day of vacation before work calls tomorrow. Today I’ll write. He’ll tend the garden. We’ll play outside.

I’ve got plenty I want to blog about from the past week – don’t we always learn lots from our summer vacations? – but all that can wait for one more day.

Because, to coin a phrase from an old parenting poem I love, the laundry and groceries can wait till tomorrow. For holidays end, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cleaning. Routine, go to sleep.

I’m still on vacation. And vacations don’t keep.

christmas: odes and oratorios

Well, so that is that.
Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes -
Some have got broken – and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week -
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted – quite unsuccessfully -
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers.

(from W. H. Auden’s Christmas Oratorio, Part III)

Oh, Christmas. You lovely, frantic whirlwind of family and travel and presents and cookies and feasts and carols and lights and surprises.

Every year you are the same, and every year you are different.

We gather round the same warm table while the children, inches taller, dote on this year’s bright-eyed baby.

We tell old stories and old jokes amid new worries and wonders. Jobs have changed, addresses have changed, relationships have changed. But we still laugh at and with and because of each other.

We look back on a year past and look ahead to a year coming. The youngest asks everyone to name their favorite Christmas present. The oldest asks everyone to name their favorite Christmas memory.

Your traditions – even the ones we claim as sacred – change from year to year.

We rush the little ones to the nativity play on Christmas Eve. Or we bundle up in starry cold for midnight Mass. We go to bed early, knowing the Santa-seekers will be up before dawn. Or we stay up late to stack the living room with surprises, slurping down the milk and crunching the cookies to keep the magic alive.

Every year, dear Christmas, we bring you wishes, though they range from silly to serious.

This year I secretly hoped you’d bring me quiet moments amid the jovial family chaos – time to write, time to read. Instead you brought each-day-busier-than-the-last until I finally sank back into the fullness of my life like a cozy armchair near the fire. You gave me a reason to gather with those I love dearest. Being present to them was gift enough.

You reminded me of this year’s blessings. A darling, healthy baby after a long, dark, sick winter of waiting. A blue-eyed wonder of a boy whose very presence reminds me of Christmas promise after Advent longing. And a partner whose homecomings make the absence bearable and the delight at being family all the more joy-filled.

So tonight, as we return home from one family, ready to launch tomorrow to the next, you remind me that the madness was worth it – the baby that screamed on planes to and fro, the late nights of packing and wrapping and cleaning and cooking, the inevitable bumps of many families jumbled together under one roof.

Because it was all so human.

And if there were ever a holiday to celebrate our beautiful, messy, maddening humanity, Christmas it is. 

To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.

parenting in advent: 4th sunday

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary.  And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.” (Luke 1:26-31)

The announcement of a child’s arrival rarely comes the way we planned.

For some it is an utter shock – unexpected, unplanned, unprepared. For others it is the culmination of years of trying – astonishment, delight, but still surprise.

Sometimes the news is revealed in the quiet of one’s own home, a breathless waiting for the lines to appear on the test. Sometimes it is announced in the sterile light of the doctor’s office. Sometimes it breaks into everyday life with a phone call or a letter that the long-awaited child is here.

But the news is never quite as we expected.

When we are far from parenting’s beginning, we picture how the announcement might look, feel, or sound, and how we will share it with others in turn. But the reality – the years of infertility, or the recurring miscarriages, or the “oops!” baby, or the failed adoption – can be darker shades of grey than we ever imagined. And even when the child is hoped for, longed for, prayed for, we still find ourselves overwhelmed by emotions. Joy. Fear. Love. Anxiety. Wonder. Despair. Hope.

Parents often find themselves younger or older than they would have liked. They don’t have the money or the job or the partner or the resources to raise the child in the way they wanted. They ask, “How can this be?” They wonder how they will bear the news. They grieve the loss of their former life even as they prepare for the future to come.

“The world is never ready for the birth of a child,” wrote one of my favorite poets. It has always been such: parents have never felt fully prepared, completely ready, absolutely certain that they knew what they were getting themselves into.

Zechariah was troubled. Joseph was troubled. Mary was deeply troubled. Each had to lay aside expectations of what a child or a family or a parent should look like. Each had to give themselves entirely to trust in a strange and surprising God. Life was never the same after the news.

Is this Advent’s reminder to us, year after year? That Christmas is never quite what we expected, either. That our plans are not always God’s plans. That we can only prepare so much before giving over to trust in our surprising God, for whom nothing is impossible.

Our hopes and dreams for ourselves, our children, our lives all exist within God’s greater dream of love for us. A love which we will never fully understand or grasp or even imagine. A love which will challenge us and demand from us things we never wanted to give. A love which asks us to trust what we cannot see.

May delivery be easy,

may our child grow and be well.

Let him be happy from time to time

and leap over abysses.

Let his heart have strength to endure

and his mind be awake and reach far.

But not so far

that it sees into the future.

Spare him

that one gift,

0 heavenly powers.

 - from “A Tale Begun” by Wislawa Szymborska

prelude to a baptism: first baths

I love with an almost fearful love
to remember the first baths I gave him…

…I’d tell him about his wonderful body
and the wonderful soap, and he’d look up at me,
one week old, his eyes still wide
and apprehensive…

…I love that time
when you croon and croon to them, you can see
the calm slowly entering them, you can
sense it in your clasping hand,
the little spine relaxing against
the muscle of your forearm, you feel the fear
leaving their bodies…

from Sharon Olds, “Bathing the New Born”

will this be the last?

Each day I rise with the same question in mind: will today be The Day?

I go about the day’s routine: work, play, eat, sleep. All the while wondering: will the water break? will the contractions start? When and how and where?

There will be a Last Moment before it all begins, the rush of realization, the final flurry of work and energy and pain and emotion that will bring this child into the world. But I will not know until the moment has passed that it was the last of Before and the first of Next.

And I wonder what the baby on the other side thinks, knows, dreams about what is to come. Blissful innocence? Or perhaps some secret hint that great change lies just ahead?

The last night before you were born, you were
almost complete, your mind busy,
without language, but full of motion
which would never be remembered or know itself.

from “January, Daughter” by Sharon Olds

Some days that transform our lives blindside us completely. Others we await with great anticipation, eager and watchful and wondering at the window.

Birth days are both.

as promised, i’ll shut up now

Is there anything more lovely…

…than a small child running barefoot and free…

…through the grass on a perfect summer’s evening?

 

As good as it gets, this side of paradise.

It’s easy to love
through a cold spring
when the poles
of the willows
turn green
pollen falls like
a yellow curtain
and the scent of
Paper Whites
clots
the air

but to love for a lifetime
takes talent

…

you have to be willing to move through
life
together
the way the long
grasses move
in a field
when you careen
blindly toward
the other
side

 - from Mary Mackey, “The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position Number 3″